NIGERIAN GOVT. SLAMS UK MAGAZINE FOR ITS CRITICISM OF "CHANGE BEGINS WITH ME"

The Economist, a UK based magazine,
published an article few days ago in which it
criticized the "Change Begins with Me
Campaign" launched by President Buhari on
September 8th. The article insinuated that
President Buhari was planning to use the
campaign to re-introduce his War against
Indiscipline and in the long run tame Nigerians
from freely expressing themselves.
However in a statement released yesterday,
Minister of Information and Culture, Lai
Mohammed described the article as racist and
one characterized by embellishment. He also
described the use of the word in the article as
unpardonable. Read the full text of the
statement below...
Our attention has been drawn to a story
by The Economist, datelined Lagos and
featured in the paper's print edition of
Sept. 24th 2016, entitled: ''Nigeria's war
against indiscipline, Behave or be
whipped''.
Contrary to the newspaper's self-
professed belief in ''plain language'', the
article in question, from the headline to
the body, is a master-piece of
embellishment or dressed-up language.
It is loaded with innuendos and decidedly
pejorative at best, and downright racist
at worst.
The Economist wrote that President
Buhari wants to ''tame'' Nigerians with
the ''Change Begins With Me'' Campaign.
For those who are the owners of the
English language, the use of that word is
unpardonable, the verb ''tame'' suggests
that Nigerians are some kind of wild
animals that must be domesticated, and
the usage reveals the mind-set of the
authors of the article: a deliberate put
down of a whole people under the guise
of criticising a government policy.
The paper, in striving to reach a
preconceived conclusion, also insinuated
that some 150,000 volunteers are being
trained as enforcers of the ''Change
Begins With Me'' Campaign. This is not
true. In his speech at the launch of the
Campaign on Sept. 8th 2016, the
President, a globally-acknowledged
leader who believes strongly in the rule
of law, left no one in doubt that moral
suasion, the very antithesis of force, will
be employed to achieve attitudinal
change among Nigerians. In that speech,
the President said: ''I am therefore
appealing to all Nigerians to be part of
this campaign.'' To the best of our
knowledge and, surely the knowledge of
those who own the language, the words
''appeal'' and ''enforce'' are not
synonymous.
In its rush to discredit the ''Change
Begins With Me'' Campaign, The
Economist, a widely respected
newspaper, fell below its own standards
by choosing to be economical with the
truth. Enforcement is not part of the
strategies to be employed under the
Campaign, and nowhere has it been said
that the ''moral police'' will be unleashed,
as reported by the newspaper. In writing
the story, the paper did not even deem it
necessary to speak with any official of
the government, thus breaching one of
the codes of journalism, which is
fairness. It chose instead to quote a
''critic'' of Mr. President in a perfunctory
manner.
Again, The Economist made the same
mistakes that most critics of the
''Change Begins With Me'' Campaign
have made: Rushing to comment on a
campaign they do not understand. The
Campaign had barely been launched
when the critics brought out their big
guns to shoot it down. In the process,
many of them ended up shooting
themselves in the foot. Had they tarried
a while to allow the government to roll
out the details of the campaign, they
might have shown more circumspection
than they did in their criticism.
The Campaign, which the President said
''will help restore our value system and
rekindle our nationalistic fervor'', is not
designed to shift any responsibility to
Nigerians, as many have erroneously
said. It is an all-inclusive campaign that
was designed to start with the
leadership. That much was explained by
the President when he said the
government would ''drive the campaign''
and that it must be strongly supported
by all concerned individually. ''Change
Begins With Me'' was designed to start
from the President, then trickle down to
the Vice President, Ministers, other top
government officials and to all citizens.
What is the campaign asking Nigerians
to do? Be the change they want to see
in the society.
In other words, if we all want an orderly
society, for example, the motorists
among us must obey traffic rules, our
aggrieved youth must stop destroying
public property, patent medicine sellers
must stop selling fake drugs, commercial
vehicle drivers must stop taking
alcoholic beverages before driving etc.
There is nothing extraordinary or over-
burdening in all these. We are the
fundamental units of the society. If we
are not willing to change our ways for
the better, we cannot expect a better
society.
The Economist said that from its earliest
days, the paper had ''looked abroad, both
for subjects to write about and for
circulation''. That means the paper must
be aware that many countries in the
world have also embarked on the kind of
campaign that Nigeria launched on
September 8th 2016. In 1979, Singapore
launched the National Courtesy
Campaign to encourage Singaporeans to
be more kind and considerate to one
another. In 2011, Mozambique launched
a campaign to educate students on how
to treat foreign tourists as part of
preparations for the country's hosting of
the All-Africa Games in that year. In
2015, China launched a campaign to
''name and shame'' any of its own
tourists who behave badly, either at
home or abroad. And this year, the
Tokyo Good Manners Project was
launched to improve manners in the
metropolis of the Japanese capital. It is
therefore uncharitable for The Economist
to hide behind the facade of its own
prejudice to denigrate Nigeria's genuine
effort at national re-orientation.
Alhaji Lai Mohammed
Minister of Information and Culture



Sourced and edited by DANIEL IKECHUKWU EKWUNIFE